


chaosmonger

by enchantingoats



Category: Star Wars: Rebels, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Morally Grey Bo-Katan, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, The Mandalorian (TV) Season 2 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-12 06:48:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28881222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enchantingoats/pseuds/enchantingoats
Summary: The girl focused on Bo-Katan again before humming. “So if he has the Darksaber, he’s your choice for Mand’alor.” She tilted her head as she gave him a proper once over. “If he’s worth his armor, he might have a chance.”In which Sabine decides to give her fellow Mandalorians a second try, and maybe cause a ruckus on the way.
Relationships: Ezra Bridger & Sabine Wren
Comments: 6
Kudos: 44





	1. A Meeting

Lothal did little to inspire enthusiasm or hope. Another desert planet with a vague promise of Jedi and long lost connections. Bo-Katan had been insistent, and without Slave I or a replacement for the Razor Crest, he would have made little headway in an argument. And Din didn’t feel inclined to give her a real reason to kill him. His surrender of the Darksaber didn’t seem sufficient cause to leave him be. 

They had landed some part away from a complex isolated on the dunes, Capital City visible on the horizon. The dull crunching of feet padding on sand and the ship as it settled served as the only source of noise as they made their way to the building. With the full force of Lothal’s sun bearing down on every surface, the reflections of neon paint and metal made it impossible to look forward.

A girl was standing on the rails up top, her eyes glancing between all three of the Mandalorians. Fiery hair made it difficult to tell her exact reactions, but Din saw her barely give him a passing glance, before focusing on Bo-Katan and jerking her head, ushering them in.

They followed her into the small home.

“Lady Bo-Katan,” the girl said, by way of greeting. She opened her shelves and began to rummage around.

“Sabine.”

“What do you want?” She grabbed the mugs as Bo-Katan and the others settled into the chairs.

“We came for Ezra.”

“He’s not here.”

She slid the mugs around the small table before turning back. Koska and Bo-Katan took off their helmets. 

“He’s investigating a strange occurrence in the Force.” Sabine started, making air quotes as she spoke. “Woke up in a frenzy, said he felt a surge on Tython so he’s gone to check it out. Your friends, one is a Reeves I have not met. The other?”

“Surprisingly relevant. Ezra is likely searching for his child,” Bo-Katan replied.

Sabine looked down and past the table to see Grogu, resting in the sling by his hip. Her eyes darted back to him and were expectant with the natural curiosity he had come to anticipate, but when he failed to move she frowned at Bo-Katan.

“He doesn’t take his helmet off that often.”

Sabine scoffed but apparently decided to let it drop. “Your choice, I don’t bite. It’s nice to make faces at the idiots of the Galaxy under there. But I don’t recognize your insignia. What clan are you?”

“Clan Mudhorn.”

Sabine’s eyebrows shot up as her face twitched with a smile. “Can’t say I’ve—”

“He’s Death Watch.”

Her vambrace was charged and loaded before Bo-Katan had finished the last syllable. As if remembering who they were, Sabine dropped her arm, shifting awkwardly. He dropped his hand from where it had instinctually jolted to his blaster at her movement. Bo-Katan sighed while fixing him with a glare and Din frowned. She had been prickly back then and now; her reaction at the time had been inflammatory. Din wondered now if all other Mandalorians were this hostile towards the Creed.

“You know the rules, Bo. You brought a member of the Watch here?” Sabine’s face was tainted with a strange sort of resentment. Whatever their history was, it wasn’t as simple as Bo-Katan had made it seem. “I thought you were done with that.”

“I’m not with the Watch. He’s one of their foundlings. It’s why he thinks he needs to keep the helmet on.”

Sabine massaged her temple as she scoured her memory. “Right, the Creed or something. At least tell me your name.”

He hesitated before speaking. “Din.”

“Sabine Wren. Clan Wren,” she replied in turn. “That’s not a name familiar to me. A Force-knows-who decked in pure beskar running around with Lady Bo-Katan? You must have quite a story to have picked up a Force-sensitive on top of all that.”

“You could say that.” Grogu gurgled in what he thought was agreement. Sabine slid a plate of meiloorun and when he started to make grabby hands, Din hoisted him out of the sling so he could reach the fruit himself.

“You’re quite talkative, Sabine,” Bo-Katan said. It was her tone, Din decided, that felt rude. As if the subject of every line was the butt of some insidious joke only she understood.

“I’m bored. Don’t get a lot of visitors.”

“He has the Darksaber as well.” Din tensed. 

The girl focused on Bo-Katan again before humming. “So if he has the Darksaber, he’s your choice for Mand’alor.” She tilted her head as she gave him a proper once over. “If he’s worth his armor, he might have a chance.”

“No, the throne’s still mine. But I didn’t win the Darksaber from Moff Gideon. He did.”

Din held it up before sliding it to her, “I said I yield.”

“So it’s yours then. He can give it to you like I did last time, then I can comm Ezra and tell him to come home. Easy, is that all?” Sabine had turned back to the caf machine, shifting weight as she watched the stream of liquid trickle into the glass kettle.

“I can’t do that.” Bo-Katan said icely. “But I’m not just here for Ezra. I want you to help us retake Mandalore.”

Sabine’s head turned slightly, but her expression was hidden by the unruly mess of hair. A long silence filled the room, with only the caf machine running in the background to mark the passage of time before she shuffled over. Din looked through his peripheral vision, though the curve of the visor blurred Bo-Katan’s face. Her eyes were latched on Sabine, the steely focused gaze centered as Sabine returned the glare. 

Sabine grabbed the hilt of the Darksaber, igniting the blade. It swung in a lazy arc, the edges glitching out of reality as she spun it in her hand with worn familiarity. She let it buzz for a moment before switching it off and tossing it back to him. 

“No.” 

“Why not.”

“I have things to do. I love Mandalore, but you have to know there’s nothing left.”

“I thought you said you were bored,” Din said, the voice coming through the modulator cool and loaded.

She gave him a look.

“I know you don’t really believe that.” Bo-Katan added.

“Well, last time didn’t work so well for us did it?” Sabine laughed sardonically. “Forgive me for being a little skeptical about doing that again.”

“Don’t lie to me, Wren. You’re sitting here, just waiting for that to happen. They’re not coming back. The galaxy hasn’t stopped moving and our window gets narrower and narrower. You’re worried about your mistakes? You have regrets? Get over it.”

Something in the girl seemed to snap. “If you want it so much why don’t you take it and go? Pry it off his corpse, show the rest of them that you’ll do nothing to get the throne back. I’m sure some will heed the code.”

“I have no quarrel with him.”

Din wasn’t sure he agreed with the assessment. Nor did Sabine.

“As if that’s ever stopped any of us. How many Mandalorians have you killed Bo? And Death Watch?” Sabine rubbed her hands over her face. It was infuriating that the semantics of inheriting the Darksaber suddenly mattered. It was tiring. “You’re not going to do it properly, and you’re not going to do it improperly. Well, that puts us at an impasse.”

“The Duchess could have ruined us.”

Din saw the girl freeze before her face blanked.

“I’ve come to terms with it,” she said softly. “And I’ve paid for it tenfold. You know that.”

“I know you have. But my point is, together, we've turned the fate of Mandalore around once already. I don’t have all the answers now, but there’s a lot to get done anyway.”

Bo-Katan leaned forward in her seat before continuing.

“Know that I trust him and help me. You swore your allegiance then. I’ve failed for longer than you’ve been alive. _Trust_ me.” Bo-Katan turned to Din. “Look, I won’t kill you for it. You are a true Mandalorian. But you should know so long as that blade is in your hands, you can’t leave this mission.” 

Her voice was cold and distant, with the ire that would normally send warning bells off in his head. She had changed the terms of a deal before, but Din had met the backstabbing types before. Bo-Katan didn’t strike him as cowardly. Dangerous and underhanded, but a warrior. To work with her was a dangerous path to tread, but Din’s allegiance would only last so long as the kid was protected anyway. 

“The one who wields the Darksaber. You. Mudhorn.” Sabine pointed at him, calling his attention back to the matter at hand. “What are you going to do about that kid? You’re duty bound to Mandalore now, and Mandalore’s not exactly the place you’d take a child. Not anymore.”

“Grogu needs to be trained. I was tasked to return him to his kind. His powers are too much for me to handle.” 

“So that’s his name?” Not waiting for a response, Sabine continued. “Well, my brother is a Jedi.”

“So you’ll help us?” He clarified.

“No, _Ezra_ will help you with the kid. And if you tell him about your plan to reclaim Mandalore and he wants to get involved with your mission, I won’t stop him. Otherwise, you promise to leave us out of it.”

“Kid, what is with you? What happened to Phoenix Squadron?” Bo-Katan’s voice was unmistakably soft. “I heard about—”

“I think Ezra will be back today.” She grabbed the comm before passing the caf to the three of them, leveling a gaze at the kid. “Deep Core is kind of far, but I get this feeling he’s on his way.”

Din thought he could taste the bitterness through his helmet.


	2. An Encounter

The dunes were growing restless, the promise of a sandstorm disrupting the quiet solitude of the late afternoon sun. Bo-Katan and Koska, not ones for company, had headed back to the ship to wait out the event, or scheme; Din wasn’t sure what was more probable. Grogu, already won over by sweet meiloorun, had taken to the girl’s hair. The girl—Sabine—had hoisted him up and let him grab tufts as he pleased, seemingly content to let him wreak havoc on the strands. 

The tonal reds were a rare color in the Galaxy, yet far too artificial for her to have been born with it. Overall, it struck him as a strange choice of vanity to have for their kind.

“Have you fought with it yet?” Sabine had been scrutinizing him for some time and at last broached the comfortable silence.

“No.” 

“Huh, you should try it. It’s like a lightsaber.”

He’d only seen a sword of light once before. “The Jedi laser swords?”

“You’ve seen them before?”

“We went to Ahsoka Tano. She’s the one who sent us to Tython.”

This seemed to pique the girl’s interest. “You’ve seen Ahsoka?” 

He nodded.

Sabine seemed pleased with this tidbit of knowledge but did not offer much more on the subject. She stroked the tips of Grogu’s ears, to which Grogu closed his eyes, brimming with contentment.

It was odd, how well the kid took to strangers, for someone who had experienced too much grief at their hands. This girl too, though younger than his normal choice of acquaintances, seemed perfectly content keeping in touch with the Galaxy’s hotshots, a certain prospective ruler in particular. There had also been that tail end of their earlier conversation, something Bo-Katan knew about the girl that she did not seem inclined to share. Perhaps it was that deep Force empathy that Grogu felt that made it easy for him to assess the character of a person and stay so trusting. Perhaps it was a sense of kinsmanship between them, children suffering the consequences of a world ruined by their predecessors.

He’d found the kid had pretty good judgement, at the very least. It was still too early to really tell.

“You’re very interesting, you know, for a Mandalorian,” she told him. 

That was unexpected. Din wasn’t sure he agreed; all of the Mandalorians he had met so far had been odder than the others in the Creed.

“What do you mean?”

“Most people with Bo-Katan would be more like the Reeves girl—they’d be on that ship.” Sabine sighed before disentangling an arm to point at the distance.

“You’re quite chatty for our kind. I’d say _you’re_ pretty interesting for a Mandalorian.”

Sabine laughed. “No, I probably talk the least among my family. Just compared to you, I guess I’m talkative.”

It wasn’t a high bar. He’d started talking more with the kid, but with strangers, it was still harder to warm up to them. Fewer words were more comfortable and saved the confusion of naming what sort of relationship they might have had. Transactional, as most things should be, and inspired devotion for the few who deserved it.

In the distance they could see the outlines of a ship, the grays fading into the haze of the atmosphere, as it grew in size. 

“I guess I thought you were with Bo-Katan out of the same feelings most of us would. I guess some would call it loyalty, others...well, you don’t look at her like that. At least, under that helmet, I don’t think you do.”

“The child is my only priority.”

She wasn’t wrong. 

“Okay, Mudhorn”—she ushered to his helmeted and armored figure—”you’re gonna need to work with me here.”

The glare of the ship’s lights had finally caught his visor, and he looked down at her while she watched the ship land. Her actions always held an undercurrent of perpetual amusement, yet now she had an additional giddiness to her movements.

  


* * *

  


Sabine was thrilled. This one was surprisingly uptight and Ezra was Ezra. This was going to be vastly entertaining.

“Ezra’s going to like you,” she told him.

“Yo, dumbass.” Sabine yelled at the figure walking down the ramp. “Bo-Katan’s here.”

  


* * *

  


To his credit, Ezra didn’t even look at her before focusing on the two figures standing by her. He looked at Din with the disarming intensity Ahsoka Tano had radiated. As if able to look through his helmet and see his face bare. He turned his attention to Grogu, who was staring up at him with wide eyes.

The illusion shattered. “Fucking knew it. I was halfway there, realized I should have waited, but then got stuck at this fuel station because some salesman was trying to sell me a new hyperdrive and wouldn’t move from in front of the fuel pump.”

“Yeah, okay,” Sabine said in a way that Din knew meant she hadn’t been listening at all. 

“Well, this is him,” she said, looking at Din while gesturing vaguely to Ezra.

Din stood silently.

Sabine and Ezra looked at each other, some silent conversation taking place, before Ezra smiled widely. 

“Hi, I’m Ezra.”

Din nodded before Grogu made a sound that indicated he wished to be acknowledged. 

“This is Grogu.”

  


* * *

  


General exhaustion, and the common understanding that nothing productive would happen with a sandstorm grounding their ships till morning, had led the various parties to scatter. Bo-Katan had commed ahead—Koska and her would stay on the ship through the night, no need to worry about sending them rations.

Sabine hadn’t planned to.

“There’s a room downstairs for you and Grogu if you want to set up for the night. There’s food in the kitchen and some water. I think there might be a fresher, but I’m not sure the light works. Sorry.”

“Do you think he could talk to the Jedi now?”

“Can he talk?” Ezra asked. He was following Mudhorn around, even more thrilled by their company than she was. “I have a name though. Ezra Bridger.”

Utter loser. “Well, it doesn’t matter. He’s asleep anyhow, I think that meiloorun knocked him right out,” she told them both, and the figures stopped their pacing to observe the child, asleep on the chair.

“You have a lot of meiloorun for a desert planet inhabitant,” Din said.

Sabine had turned her head quite abruptly at that, mouth opening and closing as she reached for the right words to say. He hadn’t meant anything by the comment, and yet—

“It’s, yeah. Yeah, I do.”

Ezra was still antsy.

Their current situation had hit him more than her; he was even less used to inaction than she was, less content to sit here when one of their own was stranded across the Galaxy and then some. It had been the cause of many arguments—they were family, family fights for family—and a tenuous understanding to avoid the subject had been set. An understanding that was held for a period at a time before it spilled over, like the chronometers that sang at the hour’s mark.

Yet every time he left, she found the pull grew stronger, the urge to go with him, if only to make sure he didn't abandon her to the sands of Lothal, where she would wither away under sun and sky until only a husk of herself remained.

Din had taken the kid with him and the door whispered shut. Sabine could hear the winds pick up outside, the howl against drafty window panes echoing around the metal room. She knew precisely where Ezra stood, though shrouded in darkness, only the sounds of their breaths filling the space between them.

“Sabine, this is our chance.”

She scoffed at him, moving into the kitchen, but Ezra wasn’t going to give this up.

“Come on, this is Mandalore. You’ve wanted this for so long.”

“Let’s talk about this in the morning, yeah?”

“They’ll want an answer by morning.”

“Ezra!” Sabine exclaimed at last.

He backed away, hands up, before thumbing the beard he’d begun to keep more regularly. She still had a few years and an inch on him, and yet the look aged him drastically. At times it made her feel like the younger sibling, especially when he used the Force to pull some sage wisdom from that infernal void.

“Bo-Katan and a new hope and the Empire is gone...the moment couldn’t be better,” he said after some time.

Sabine reached for his hand, grasping it between both palms. 

“Look at me. Look me in the eyes and tell me you’re fine sending that child’s father into a death trap.”

It hit where it hurt. Even in the darkness she could see that enthusiasm snuff out, the dim ember that had reignited, sooner than the chronometer’s hour, and given way to the words that were meant to maim.

“That’s not fair.”

“I’m not trying to be,” Sabine said. “I don’t want to fight with you about this right now. Can we just go to sleep? I’ll take you for a ride and we can talk this out tomorrow.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am going to take my sweet time with this because I still only have a very vague direction of where it is going to go. at some point I think I'll come back to this chapter to add some more descriptive language...as if I didn't finish this up instead of starting my short story draft for college lmao.

**Author's Note:**

> we'll see how long I keep this up, there's a lot I would have to flesh out or think about. plus catch up on the current state of Mandalore. :')
> 
> also, from a personal standpoint, I don't know how much I would want the actual show to deal with Mand'alor, so this story wouldn't be a prediction or anything. some things are not also agreeing with the Rebels timeline (ex. Ezra is clearly here).


End file.
